


chez les benedictines

by fuzzyfalcons18



Category: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), portrait of a lady on fire
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26799475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzyfalcons18/pseuds/fuzzyfalcons18
Summary: After an unfortunate  misunderstanding  with her mother, Heloise is sent to a covenant
Relationships: Héloïse & Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
Kudos: 5





	chez les benedictines

**Author's Note:**

> I'll try to make future chapters longer

Heloise cried bitter tears when her mother bought her the only new clothes she'd seen in a year.

Not in front of her, of course. _That_ would be stupid. "You," her mother would say, smoothly and suavely, "are _ungrateful_." And she would smile a pitiful smile that would grate on Heloise's dwindling tolerance for her presence. 

Then would come the words that stung her the most.

"You are nothing like your sister."

Yes, Heloise would say, no, scream. I am not my sister, but here we are.

And then her mother would sulk.

It would be two or three days before it would be acceptable for Heloise to even breathe in a set vicinity of her mother if she had even objected to something as insignificant as accompanying her to comfort the widow whose fifth husband had fallen into "eternal sleep". (Death was not a word in her mother's vocabulary, and Heloise often wondered why). On those days she would simply take refuge in her room, fastening the door before curling up on her bed and reading the same book she had read for the hundredth time, its leaves yellowing with age. And after she had read the aforementioned book for the one hundredth and second time, there would be the sound of knocking at her door. Her sister would always be there, lines of worry scrawled over her beautiful face.

"Heloise," she would say, her tone gently chiding as she'd smooth down her pale hair the way she had always done since they were children, "what have you done?"

Heloise would tell her, as she always had, and the two would laugh and sometimes cry at Heloise's misfortunes, and by the end of the day, her sister would have convinced her to draw a truce with her mother. But now her sister is away in Milan and Heloise was left with her mother. 

So she cries alone, in the little nook of her room hidden by shadow, where no one can hear her whimpers and no one can comfort her.

Now it is time to admit something. You might be thinking that Heloise is indeed very unreasonable if she is shedding tears over new clothes. I have slightly misled you. (Only for dramatic effect, I assure you). It was a nun's habit, not the big satin ballgown or whatever spoils you think eighteenth century maids with too much time on their hands would wear. So by now you have probably guessed, and rightly so, that Heloise did not want to be a nun. It was an accusation of her being what her mother would forlornly call "indecent". 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heloise was lonely, as people often are when they are one of only twenty people on a desolate island, and so was almost thankful when she saw the round jolly, yet undeniably undesirable face of the blacksmith's son rounding the hedge to the manor.

"Madam." 

He bows down to Heloise, his chestnut locks brushing against her gown. Heloise steps back with distaste but when when the man takes her hands and insinuates just how much joy he would feel if she'd take a walk with him to the back of the prairies "where none can see them", Heloise is indignant and shuts the door on his face. She did not care if she had been rude and stalks back to the stairwell where her mother is waiting.

"He has been here quite a bit." she quietly muses. 

Heloise opens her mouth to answer, but her mother is already gone.

Heloise wakes up in the morning to see her mother (hiding?) behind the houseplant, glaring. Heloise stares at her before her mother breaks, blinking like a fat insect had flown into her eye. She was angry.

"I will not _tolerate…_ " Her mother takes a sharp breath, "your _foolishness."_ Another deep breath. "I am sick of you thinking that I will let you marry that _boy."_ She says "boy" as if she would rather have snakes in their place in the world. 

Heloise's head spins. Her and that...idiot of a blacksmith's son? No, no, no. That is not true. Her mother can never even dream of that being true. Heloise's face burns from humiliation, but her mother does not even notice. Instead she forges on. 

"I am sending you to the Benedictines."

The lack of italisation in that sentence makes Heloise suspect that for once, her mother is telling the truth.

  
  



End file.
